Emmerie Harris, a junior at Texas Wesleyan University whose parents immigrated from Chihuahua, Mexico, describes the fear and anxiety among her undocumented friends as “not as intense, but intense.” She said the worry of getting deported is constant — like it’s always on their minds.
“We just hope that it doesn’t happen to anyone, you know, anybody’s family,” said Harris, a biology major who grew up in Fort Worth’s Meadowbrook neighborhood. “It hasn’t happened to anyone that I know, personally — not yet.”
Harris was sitting in the university’s student center doing her biology homework. For many students at the private east Fort Worth university, President Donald Trump’s executive orders around immigration aren’t distant issues. Thirty percent of its 2,500 students are Latino. Many students have undocumented friends or relatives.
Ashley Lekas, a junior religion and psychology major, isn’t Latino. Her grandfather immigrated from Greece. Lekas thinks immigrants’ humanity needs to be understood and respected. But she also thinks immigration laws should be understood and respected, too.
Lekas said that she feels as if the immigration system needs to be reformed and doesn’t believe that Trump has the “perfect answers,” but some actions to curb illegal immigration are a start.
“I think that people who just try to disrespect immigration and just try to come on over and disrespect the policies are undermining those families and those people who really, really struggle to get here,” said Lekas.
Trump’s slew of executive orders has college students across Tarrant County thinking about how new immigration policies will affect them on and off campus.
In his first weeks in office, Trump delivered on his campaign promise of tougher immigration enforcement, including orders on tightening visa restrictions for student visas, reviewing contracts and grants that provide funding or services to “illegal aliens” and rescinding policies that prevented “sensitive locations,” such as churches, schools and college campuses, from being sites of immigration enforcement. Many of these directives are being challenged in court.
In Texas — a state that is second only to California in terms of the numbers of undocumented people attending college and university — the orders mean uncertainty for those students and their futures.
The fear in the undocumented community has been “the worst it’s ever been,” said Rosa Maria Berdeja, an immigration attorney who has been practicing in Fort Worth for the past 15 years.
“People knew it was going to get rough, but now that we’re actually living it, it’s a lot more intense than we anticipated,” said Berdeja. “That’s for sure.”
In recent weeks Berdeja has seen how uncertainty affects peoples’ daily lives. Parents worry about the possibility of their children going into foster care if they get picked up by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. DACA students — undocumented students who arrived in the U.S. at a young age and can gain temporary work authorization — live in limbo over whether the program will be extended. Many have limited their movements outside their homes.
While she can’t ease their fears, Berdeja said, she can help them come up with a plan for the worst-case scenario. Having a plan in place relieves some anxiety, she said.
UTA, Texas Wesleyan share guidance for students, community
At public colleges like the University of Texas at Arlington and Tarrant County College, where more than a third of students are Latino, the changing federal terrain creates uncertainty. Texas Wesleyan University, UTA and TCC are all designated Hispanic-serving institutions — where they are eligible for federal and foundation grants that are now under threat with the Trump administration. Although only 13% of Latinos in the U.S. are undocumented, according to 2019 census data, immigration issues remain a concern for many.
Texas Wesleyan University officials wrote an email to their campus community in the first weeks of the Trump administration reaffirming its commitment to creating “a community of belonging and compassion.” (Billy Banks | Fort Worth Report) Texas Wesleyan officials acknowledged the concern in a Jan. 28 email to faculty and staff.
“First and fundamentally, the University is committed to supporting its students and campus community by providing an environment conducive to learning and growth,” the Texas Wesleyan Office of Communications wrote. “As stated in our Core Values, the RAMily embodies a community of belonging and compassion — regardless of anyone’s background or immigration status.”
The university sent a similar email to students Feb. 11. University officials advised the campus community to go to the division of student affairs with questions and turn to their supervisor or security for specific questions regarding interactions with federal, state and local agencies.
“Together, we will continue to foster a campus community of care and respect for each other — it’s at the heart of everything we do,” the email stated.
Ten miles east of Texas Wesleyan sits UTA with its 42,000 students. University officials have set up a comprehensive webpage to develop plans and guidance.
“As a Texas educational institution, UTA must follow all applicable federal laws, as well as UT System policies, regarding cooperation with federal authorities,” UTA President Jennifer Cowley wrote in a Feb. 5 email to the campus community. “To assist in answering questions related to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) concerns, we’ve created a Frequently Asked Questions document(s).”
One document created by university staff features immigration enforcement FAQs that would apply in the “unlikely” event that immigration officials come to the UTA campus. The other document is FAQs for DACA students.
Other institutions have not shared their response to uncertainty around federal immigration policies. A Tarrant County College spokesperson said the college had not sent any immigration-related communications to students. Texas Christian University and Tarleton State University did not respond to media requests.
Universities navigating ‘confusion’ around federal orders
Sarah Spreitzer, vice president and chief of staff for government relations at the American Council on Education, said she thinks that “there’s a lot of confusion and chaos across the federal agencies.”
Universities are “all trying to share as much information as possible with their faculty and staff to kind of help alleviate fears, but then also inform them for planning purposes and what might be going on,” Spreitzer said.
The group has been tracking executive orders and explaining them to about 1,600 higher education institutions that make up their membership, including UTA. She’s seen other institutions, like University of Wisconsin-Madison, University of Illinois Chicago and Texas A&M University, take similar actions as UTA, with webpages being updated as federal directives evolve.
One thing that Spreitzer is certain about: More directives are coming down the pike.
“We know that even though some things have been done on the immigration space, there’s going to be much more done over the next couple months, given the directions to the state and Department of Homeland Security about what the Trump administration would like to do,” Spreitzer said.
Spreitzer anticipates the administration’s tightening on immigration and cuts to federal research funding will also affect recruitment of international students. At UTA, 13% — or about 5,500 — students are international. Cowley sent an email this week that the university does not have immediate plans to pause graduate recruitment efforts this fiscal year that ends on Aug. 31, according to The Shorthorn, the UTA student newspaper.
International students might opt to go to other English-speaking countries like Canada, the United Kingdom or Australia. Their future — and the future of research in those countries — seems a bit more stable, Spreitzer said.
“If you’re a graduate student trying to figure out where you’re going to do a multi-year degree,” Spreitzer asked, “are you going to choose to study in the United States, where there’s so much uncertainty, not just on the research side, but also on the immigration side?”
Shomial Ahmad is a higher education reporter for the Fort Worth Report, in partnership with Open Campus. Contact her at shomial.ahmad@fortworthreport.org.
At the Fort Worth Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here.
The Fort Worth Report partners with Open Campus on higher education coverage. The Report’s higher education coverage is supported in part by major higher education institutions in Tarrant County, including Tarleton State University, Tarrant County College, Texas A&M - Fort Worth, Texas Christian University, Texas Wesleyan University, The University of Texas at Arlington, UNT Health Science Center.
This article first appeared on Fort Worth Report and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
